Numerous attempts have been made to construct a gutter cover capable of dealing with various and sundry types of debris, weather conditions and volume flows of runoff water from a roof. The first embodiments of the gutter cover were constructed under the school of thought that increasing the gap size of the expanded metal increased the ability of the cover to ingress water while yet shedding debris. These embodiments often captured and stalled debris of all sizes on top of the mesh because of the high rate of water ingress through the screen. They also permitted debris, such as pine needles, smaller leaves and sediments, to clog the screen or the gutter. Recognizing these problems, others began to shape the screen in a convex manner over the gutter to encourage debris shedding. However many of these embodiments because of the convexity of the screen also presented crevices and nooks where debris could collect and ultimately clog the screen. Others recognized that the screen was still able to ingress high volumes of water by using the expanded metal as a skeleton to layer over top a fine mesh material for shedding smaller debris. These proved effective for the first few months after installation but eventually clogged due to the fineness of the mesh. Still, others recognized that a solid plate in combination with expanded metal could be used to handle high volumes of runoff, yet provide a smaller surface area to attract collecting debris. These often used a piece of sheet metal in combination with a medium mesh size expanded metal; however, after time the expanded metal still collected debris and exhibited an impaired shedding ability. These gutter covers, like those previously listed, failed to recognize that for the cover to effectively shed debris the cover and expanded metal member had to be designed to distribute the ingressing water across the face of the expanded metal and control the rate at which the runoff water ingresses through the expanded metal. Previous attempts also failed to realize the importance of the angle of the louvered surfaces within various expanded metals and the direction of the louver with respect to the direction of the flow of the runoff water. The angle of the louvered surface is critical to controlling the distribution of runoff across the face of the expanded metal and subsequently controlling the rate of water ingress through the expanded metal, as well as whether the expanded metal traps and collects debris. The angle of the louvered surface plays a key role in whether debris will shed easily across the face of the expanded metal or have a tendency to get hung up by the louvered surfaces or drawn down into the expanded metal.
Therefore, a primary objective of the present invention is to provide a gutter cover that accounts for and remedies the failings of previous gutter covers.
Therefore, a further objective of the present invention is to provide a gutter cover that distributes water across the face of the cover an controls the rate of water ingress through the cover into the gutter thereby assisting in the separation of water and shedding of debris from the passing runoff water and debris.
A still further objective of the present invent on is to provide a gutter cover having an expanded metal member with louvered surfaces wherein the angle of the louvered surface is at least 90 degrees with respect to the top surface of the expanded metal member.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a breaker plate that is secured to the expanded metal member to prevent water traveling on the bottom surface of the expanded metal member from traveling over the top of the gutter.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide a gutter cover having a v-shaped trough between and running parallel to the breaking plate for breaking up and slowing the water before reaching the gutter cover.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a gutter cover with an expanded metal member having a longitudinal width between the overlapping sides being greater than a latitudinal width between the overlapping sides.
These and/or other objectives will become apparent from the following specification and claims.